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Biology in Jaina Treatise on Reals
assumed to be non-different, they should not be characterised in terms of manifest and non-manifest forms (i.e. the intellect etc. are manifest forms of the non-manifest Prakrti). Thus, their own tenet would be lost. The touch etc. should, therforé, be treated as different with respect to modes and non-different with respect to substantivity. Supplementary Notes
The commentary deals with the following points : (a) The objects of five senses are given in 2.20. They have been defined with respect to their objectivity and abstractness on the basis of substantive and modal standpoints. These are the qualities non-different from the objects. They are different also with respect to their distinct characters. (b) The fine objects like atoms etc. are said to have touch etc, on the ground that their gross effects have them. (c) The objects of senses like touch etc. have been mentioned in successive order with respect to the senses as in 2.19. (d) The Vaisesika concept of specific qualities as belonging to the specific category of realities has been refuted on the basis of (i) inference and (ii) direct observation to support the co-existence of all the four qualities in them. (e) The objects of senses may be treated polyviewistically as different and non-different from each-other and the material objects themselves pointing out flaws in the absolutistic contentions. They should be described with substantive and modal aspects. 2. The word 'object' should be taken here to mean not only the attribute but the attributed object itself as the two are virtually inseparable. 3. The objects are substantive as well as modal. The absolutist approach in this issue is infested with flaw of possibility of non-existence of both of them as there will be no activity or transformation of the modal entity. It will be nonexistent like the 'soft hairs on the tortoise'. 4. It is an observed fact that the senses deal with material objects only. Moreover, it is also seen that every material entity has all the five attributes as in sweet edible ball. However, these attributes are received by different senses due to their limited capacities. The different sense experiences are intellectual.
The perceptibility of different attributes by the senses depends upon their proficiency due to destruction-cum-subsidence of the corresponding karmas. However, this proficiency has now been improved highly due to instrumentations like microscope, telescope, polygraph, GSR-meter, olfactometer, otoscope, microphones, telephones and algometer (pain-measure) etc. 5. The senses receive their objects by two mechanisms- (i) contactile and (ii) non-contactile The senses of touch, taste, smell and hearing work through contactile mechanism, i.e. the object has to come in contact with them in some way to produce sensations. However, the eye is supposed to work through non
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